Rainy, cool weather, the smell of falling leaves, and all things pumpkin, apple spice, and caramel start off the fall season for many families.
It starts the beginning of the holidays for my family. Like clockwork each year, in shine hot cold whatever the weather decides to do, our family brings out Halloween decorations on October 1. Up goes the graveyard in the flat part of the yard, intermittent with flamelike solar lights. The skeleton lounge on the porch with their animal companions and pretty D.I.Y. pumpkin lights are put up on the porch to create an orange glow.
After a small snack break, we get the pumpkin patch set up in the entryway and entwine fall leaves and red LED red lights to create a cozy atmosphere to sit and relax.
This year, as we decorated, we talked about all our favorite Halloween activities. With four adults and three children in the house now, the wide range of preferred styles has become remarkably interesting. One topic that we got on for a couple of hours was movies.
We each have a genre that we like to watch.
We chose five categories, each with 10 Halloween movies:
1. Family: Halloween Town, Good Ghouls Go Bad, Charlie Brown and the Great Pumpkin, Grinch Halloween Special, Hocus Pocus, Addams Family, Nightmare Before Christmas, Hotel Transylvania, Disney’s Haunted Mansion, and Scooby Doo
2. Nostalgic: The Frighteners, Army of Darkness, Fright Night, Worst Witch, Ghost Busters, Young Frankenstein, Classic Rocky Horror Picture Show, Little Shop of Horrors, House and Monster Club
3. Obscure: Dog Soldier, Near Dark, Ghoulies, Dungeon Master, Sub Species, Dracula Dark Prince, Tucker, and Dale vs. Evil, Wolfen, Ginger Snaps, and Full Eclipse
4. Scary: It’s Alive, Lost Voyage, Hills Have Eyes, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Leprechaun, Pumpkin Head, Ghost Ship, The Curse of Sleeping Beauty, Necromancer, and Outpost
5. Vintage: Comedy of Horrors, Thea Raven, Creature of the Black Lagoon, The Gorgon, Kronos the Vampire Hunter, The Crawling Eye, Abbott, and Costello meet Frankenstein, Werewolf of London, 13 Ghosts 1960 version, and The Thing from Another Planet
A big bowl of hot, buttered popcorn, dim lights (if the kids are up). Maybe, just maybe, one of those deliciously fall flavored Starbucks drinks or an ice-cold Oktoberfest beer clutched in your hand as you try and pretend the movie isn’t scary at all. Who doesn’t love a movie that makes you take that second searching glance in the shadows at the corner of the room? I know I do!
Whatever style of movie makes your Halloween holiday special to you, take the time to enjoy these important moments with people that surround you in your life. Happy fall, y’all, and be prepared: Halloween is coming!
